Carl W. Kenney II is an award winning columnist and novelist. He is committed to engaging readers into a meaningful discussion related to matters that impact faith and society. He grapples with pondering the impact faith has on public space while seeking to understand how public space both hinders and enhances the walk of faith.

Monday, October 21, 2013

The football team at Grambling St. University refuses to play because of poor conditions

It’s about time it happened.I’m not shocked.Football players from Gambling State
University refused to suit up and play this weekend.

Enough is enough.Players are fed up with long trips on a bus, poor facility conditions
and a tumultuous coaching situation.They decided not to make the trip to play Jackson State University.

Way to go team.

It hurts that I happened at Grambling – the school
Eddie Robinson coached 57 years on his way to becoming the second winningest
coach in Division I (NCAA) history.Robinson exposed the world to the gifted athletes playing on the
campuses of historically black universities.Robinson began coaching in 1941, long before black players were allowed
to play for major college programs.He
retired in 1997 with a record of 408 wins, 15 losses, and 15 ties.

Robinson coached hundreds who played in the NFL.Three –Willie Brown, Buck Buchanan and Willie
Davis – are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Doug Williams is the first and only black quarterback
to lead a team to a Super Bowl win.Williams led the Washington Redskins in a 42-10 rout over John Elway and
the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII.

Williams returned home to succeed Robinson in
1998.He resigned in 2002, after three
Southwestern Conference titles from 2000-2002, to become a personal executive
with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team that drafted him in the first round in
1978.Williams returned to Grambling in
2011 after serving as the General Manager of the Virginia Destroyers of the
United Football League.

Williams was fired in September after a battle with
administrator over mats in the weight room.

The program Robinson built deserves better than this. Williams
deserves better than this, but, more than any of that, players deserve better
than this.

On Thursday, the school relieved George Ragsdale of
his duties as interim coach and replaced him with defensive coordinator Dennis
"Dirt" Winston.Winston was on
the list of coaches the team is willing to accept as their coach.

Removing Ragsdale wasn’t enough to convince the team
to get on the bus headed to play Jackson State.They want to know why Williams was fired.

Before his termination, Williams had raised funds
through an alumni group and purchased new mats for the weight room.According to Sport’s Illustrated, the old
mats presented safety hazards, but since the raised money had not gone through
the school's foundation, the school president and athletic director ordered the
new mats to be stored in another building.

Williams was fired a week later.

The letter from the players said they had to pay for
their own Gatorade and poorly cleaned uniforms have contributed to several
players suffering multiple cases of staph infection.

In the letter, players said the athletic complex
"is in horrible condition, and has many hazards that may contribute to our
overall health. First, the complex is filled with mildew and mold. Mildew and
mold can be seen on the ceiling, walls and floor, and are contributing to water
leaks because of faltering walls and ceilings."

Players rode on bus 750-miles to a neutral-site game
in Indianapolis, SI.com reported that the team left campus at 6 p.m. on a Thursday
and arrived in Indianapolis at 9 a.m. Friday. Grambling lost 48-0 to Alcorn
State the next day. Alcorn State, based in Mississippi, flew to the game.The game at Jackson State is a 160 mile trip
from Grambling, La.

This is not what they agreed to when they signed a
national letter of intent.They enrolled
at Grambling because it’s an HBCU with a rich legacy.They came because of Robinson, Williams and
the hundreds who played at Grambling.

It’s a sickening story that is hard to report. Who
should we blame - school administrators, the coaches, the players or the
alumni.

I point the finger at all of us for failing our nation’s
HBCU’s.The problems with Grambling’s
football team reflect a broader issue related to the financial stability of HBCU’s.

On June 2, Saint Paul’s College officials announced
that it planned to close its doors.After 125 years, the school in Lawrenceville, VA was forced to terminate
75 employees and tell students to seek an education at another school. Atlanta’s
Morris Brown College is $35 million in debt and has been struggling to stay
open for years. Morris Brown has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A board member from Howard University wrote a letter
presenting financial problems, and John Silvanus Wilson Jr., president of Morehouse
College, shared his concerns with National Public Radio’s Michel Martin.

The problems at Grambling transcend football. HBCU’s
aren’t making the revenue to stay afloat. The University of Texas football
program made a profit of $68,830,484 last year. Louisiana State University, a
school in the same state as Grambling, profited $43,253,286.

With all that money being made on college football,
shouldn’t we be upset that players at Grambling have to buy their own Gatorade
and ride a bus 750 miles a play?

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Carl W. Kenney II

Carl was named the best serious columnist of 2011 by the North Carolina Press Association for his work with the News & Observer's community paper The Durham News and in 2016 by the Missouri Press Association for his columns in the Columbia Missourian. He is a columnist with the News & Observer and Co-Executive Producer of "God of the Oppressed" an upcoming documentary film on black liberation theology. He is a former Adjunct Professor at the University of Missouri - School of Journalism and Adjunct Instructor at Duke University, the Center for Documentary Studies. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He furthered his education at Duke University and attained a Master of Divinity. He was named a Fellow in Pastoral Leadership Development at the Princeton Theological Seminary on May 14, 2005. He is a freelance writer with his commentary appearing in The Washington Post, Religious News Services,The Independent Weekly and The Durham Herald-Sun. Carl is the author of two novels: “Preacha’ Man” and the sequel “Backslide”.
He has led congregations in Missouri and North Carolina